Published on 12, July, 2020
These are a few thing struck me about recent experiences:-
1. GP are not interested at all in getting involved - they shovel it along as soon as they can.
2. The people in CAMHS don't appear to give a monkeys as long as they tick the box and meet their targets. There is no provision to expedite care it seems.
3. There are people working in CAMHS (our local one anyway) who don't deserve to be looking after a hamster let alone a vulerable teenager. We've had all sorts of excuses why they can't help ranging from call the police, call social services to telling us we needed to look at our parenting skills.
4. There appears to be NO provision for adolescents to see a Psych doctor or consultant AT ALL to determine the most appropriate treatment plan.
5. There is NO emergency provision for mental health for adolescents (at least in my area). Pretty sure if an adult presented at A&E there would be an on-call mental health professional available - not for anyone else.
I went to see the cmht for assessment recently and was told that because I had formal diagnosis of asd, adhd and Dcd/dyspraxia that help wouldn’t be available to me. It seems mental health support is so bad in my area , depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts aren’t enough you have to be literally following through on those thoughts and without that intention they won’t see you. I was told that cmht nurses are leaving in droves and the provision just isn’t there. I’d sort of gathered this from what others had said on this forum but I was still shocked. And so as Robert has said support for adults is lacking. I don’t know about A&E or out of hours services.
Is not just adults, support is lacking full stop. My daughter 14 with ASD became very unwell and started to self-harm. I kept phoning begging them for an early appointment with the psychiatrist but CAMS wouldn't listen they told me to ask her if she intended to end her life and to ask information about self-harming. I lived 14 days as a prisoner in my own home with doors and windows locked to prevent my daughter from absconding. When she finally managed to carry out her thoughts she was sectioned and locked up. How is that for support? I have lost all faith in the medical profession.
Our helpful suggestions from CAMHS were:-
1. Phone the police and let them deal with your 14 year old son.
2. Phone social services and get him taken into care.
3. Go on parenting course to learn how to discipline your child.
But Robert it shouldnt go that far? If a parent is saying that things are at a crisis point then something should be done. Its no good saying "Oops missed that one" afterwards!!!!
Im not sure if it is just budgets. There are people I've met who just dont give a monkeys as long as they get to go home at 5pm and they're sure they wont get blamed if things go wrong.
Thats so awful but I can well believe it. Our NHS now seems populated with people whose first inclination is to make sure they cant get blamed for something. If they've passed it on then they dont care.
I’m so sorry. No wonder you are despairing. How hard that must be for you all. I do hope the team working with your daughter can help and that you are able to find some one to talk to.
I don't want to sound callous and uncaring, but I suspect the issue is the law and budgets for different criteria. If someone just threatens self harm. They are considered a low priority. If they actually self harm then money comes from a different budget to lock them up.